


Wells so deep

by duraznero



Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: (that is mixed in with murder because they need a fucked up component), M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26423212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duraznero/pseuds/duraznero
Summary: His eyes, though, those remained the same; clever, shining and darker than the void of the night sky.
Relationships: Ammet/Khaba (Bartimaeus)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Wells so deep

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the tags on a post a dear friend of mine made and was fueled by hour-long conversations about these vile bastards. If there is a grammar or lexical error, I apologize. English isn't my first language and I also didn't bother with a beta. 
> 
> Enjoy regardless, feedback is more than welcome!

The pale-skinned boy with bony knees that had summoned him was no more, he had been gone for some years now. The life among the High Priests of Thebes demanded one to grow up fast, and Ammet had witnessed these early beginnings. He was still mildly surprised to be summoned one day not by Khaba, the acolyte, but Khaba, the adviser to the pharaoh.

Years must have passed. The first time he had been thirteen, his skull not yet shaved as it was only permitted to the priests but still with black curls growing from his head. He had worn the robes of an acolyte in the middle of his training, yet a servant to his tutors. The last time he had been seventeen, his head freshly shaven, the youngest apprentice to reach priesthood after just eleven years of residing in the catacombs, blood dripping - furiously so, but it had been nothing compared to the fury in the youth’s dark eyes - from fresh twin wounds on the ashen skin of his cheeks and murder on his mind. 

There was no trace of these children left in his face years later when Ammet felt the pull in the Other Place and was forcefully torn away from his spirit siblings - that wasn’t the unpleasant part; he loathed every single one of them for they were beneath him. But the Other Place… it didn’t have the constant pain Earth inflicted upon him. 

His head was shaved and waxed and gleamed in the candle light. His dress was plain, a black tunic (the other priests usually favored white - but _he_ was unlike all of them), his face sharper and with more edges than before. His nose protruded from his face like an eagle’s beak, particularly impressive in profile. The wounds had healed up and turned into scars, etched deeply into his skin. He had grown, taller than most men, and he was skinny no longer.

His eyes, though, those remained the same. Clever, shining and darker than any void.

“How many years have passed?” He had asked on the day that Khaba had called him to Earth once again.

A smile, surprisingly lacking in sharpness that had been there the last time. “Six.”

In those six years, Ammet found out, Khaba had amassed power in a way that could be only compared to how Set had risen to become one of the most powerful men who had even threatened the Pharaohs’ rule in Thebes. But other than his old master, who had openly challenged the kings, his new one was a much more cunning sort. He rather served them, and he had done so well while also building his own little web of intrigue and influence. Khaba’s long spidery hands reached almost everywhere, he had eyes on every plane and in every corner of Thebes and employed many a spirit of not little power - yet Ammet prided himself on being the most powerful one among them. 

He had new quarters, much more extravagant, not at the palace though and still on the temple grounds. He also had his vault where he preferred to be. Regardless, this sentimentality was a mystery to Ammet; would it not be logical to remain close to where power was, with the pharaoh? When he had voiced this question to the magician, Khaba had chuckled in amusement.

“That fool Meritites has to be kept in line. She needs a reminder of who is _really_ in charge.”

Ah yes. Another former acolyte, a few years Khaba’s senior. With his master’s help she had risen too in the ranks within the priesthood. It was smart to not let her forget why she was so close to the top in the first place. Close to the top Khaba was these days and while Ammet believed him to be worthy of the power for he was extraordinary among his kind, his many eyes were as sharp as ever, looking for any mistake the magician would commit. 

He had never misspoken a single syllable at thirteen, not at seventeen and to Ammet’s frustration he didn’t seem to start at twenty-three. It was from then on that the times between the summons weren’t years or even months but weeks, and every time Ammet strained his ears - an expression to be taken metaphorically - to discover _something_ . Even though it was futile, he still checked the circle with a quick eye and was disappointed every single time to find _nothing_ , no smudges or breaks. Once having hated the skinny youth, Apophis curse him, for simply not screwing up at all, as time passed it became a habit for Ammet to materialize after Khaba had spoken the words of binding in his deep voice, soft like a falcon’s feather, find the pentacle without any error and to gloom in silence as Khaba spoke his commands. Commands that were spoken in a manner so different from what Ammet was used to - with something akin to familiarity. When he asked for council, Ammet gave it to him earnestly but as he did, he still thought of those scenarios that could have played out if perhaps this time, Khaba had done just a little thing wrong. 

Ammet would not hesitate to act. He would give the magician a sense of security, maybe Khaba would not notice his error at first, and then stride out of his pentacle, not bound by invisible chains anymore and free to do whatever pleased him. He would savor the _fear_ in the magician’s dark eyes, an emotion he had never seen in them. Anger and fury (those were emotions that came easy to all humans and Khaba was no exception), satisfaction, contempt, mischief, malevolence, joy - he had seen almost the full receptoire in those black eyes and as if they were deep wells, he had drowned in them countless times. He had no lungs to breathe with but even if, he would have enjoyed it all the same.

And when Khaba would start stumbling backwards, in realization of what was about to happen, Ammet would launch himself out of the circle, perhaps with a jump even though growing skeletal wings also had a certain quality to it, and tackle his prey to the floor and feast upon the magician’s surprise at the attack. As he’d savor the feeling of warm human skin, so full of life as blood pumped through Khaba, he’d lean in closely towards the human. Was he the type to tremble in fear just like he trembled in anger? Ammet dearly wanted to find out. 

His nails would be long and sharp as they dug into Khaba’s wrists, he could shape them into talons and let them roam freely over the magician’s body, leaving behind bloody scratches, but the thrill to touch and feel every twitch and movement of his master’s taut muscles was nothing compared to his desire to find out how the human _tasted_. He would burrow his face in Khaba’s neck and leave marks along his jugular, feeling the vein pump underneath his mouth and drawing blood and moans from the trembling magician underneath him, or even, if he got daring and wanted to draw out his death a little more, claim his gasping mouth and run with sharp teeth along thin lips. It’d be fascinating to find out whether Khaba tasted as much like the crypt like he smelt of it or not, if the smell of incense had settled deep within him after many years. 

The thought of the black fire raging within his master’s dark eyes brightening as Ammet ravaged him gave the marid the sweetest pleasure, with enough luck it would happen one day.

Strangely enough, he always lost himself in those thoughts so that the actual part where he snapped Khaba’s neck like it was nothing more than a papyrus stalk, feasted on his flesh as if he were a banquet or tore his throat to ribbons with his own teeth so that blood sprayed onto the floor and over both of them never came. How very curious. 

But the more frequent the summons occurred and especially the longer they lasted, the more he found himself turning towards these sorts of thoughts. He had been on Earth for two months in a row, nothing his essence couldn’t handle and to make matters even stranger, he found himself not minding at all. 

He eyed the magician intensely as he stood in his pentacle, almost as if to will him to step out of it. He was currently talking about the newly-crowned high priestess of Ra and when her name came across his lips, Ammet’s desire to bolt out of the circle and feast upon her flesh surged anew. 

“Master, might I ask… what were you to do if Meritites were to pose a similar problem to you like old Weneg once did?”

Khaba scoffed.

“That will not happen. Neither she nor anyone else in this temple would dare to raise their slaves against me.”

“Yes, I believe you, but… consider: a cobra is at its most dangerous when cornered.”

Khaba stroked his chin, his face wore a pensive expression. “Right you are, like so often.” His mouth curved into a malicious smile. “There were many things that could have been done with Weneg… the quick death I gave him was in hindsight too good for him.” He looked up at Ammet and raised an eyebrow. “Let us say a possibility becomes a reality - how were you to proceed, dear Ammet?”

A shiver went through Ammet’s essence, something he didn’t show outwardly on his guise of the beautiful black-haired golden-skinned young man - something on which Khaba’s eyes had lingered more than a few heartbeats from time to time. 

“I am so glad you asked.”

**Author's Note:**

> A bunch of fun facts I either incorporated or discovered alongside the way:
> 
> 1\. The pharoah who in real life reigned in the time when Khaba lived (assuming he was in his mid-forties to early fifties during the events of Ring of Solomon), Pinedjem II, was the defacto ruler of Upper Egypt and a High Priest himself - of Amun, another Egyptian deity. The Priests of Amun were based in the Karnak temples of Thebes and had been quite influential people for many centuries - which led me to believe that they served as inspiration for the magician-priests of Ra we find in the Bartimaeus books. Those did exist too in real life but the cult surrounding Ra wielded - as far as egyptologists know - much less power and was also based not based in Thebes but in Heliopolis, which is where now one finds the modern city of Cairo. 
> 
> 2\. Khaba, and by that I mean not the fictional character but the real life man, was a king (the word pharaoh was used only some centuries later) who ruled during the Third Dynasty. Little is known about him even today but the Third Dynasty does get a mention in Chapter 19 of RoS because the bottle into which Bartimaeus is imprisoned was found in a Third Dynasty tomb. Khaba described its style as 'a bit basic'.
> 
> 3\. I took the name Meritites from the first and main wife of King Khufu of the Fourth Dynasty - y'know, the bloke who ordered the building of the biggest of the three pyramids of Gizeh. I figured if Khaba can name himself after a long-dead king and Jabor's former master Set after a major deity in the Egyptian pantheon, then naming yourself after a long-dead queen should be cool with everyone.


End file.
